Motorola CEO explains company's downturn

In one of the bigger "Whoopsies!" since Verizon reportedly passed on the iPhone, Motorola co-chief Greg Brown says the company's own strategic decisions are the main reason for its fall from grace.

You can read it all at the Financial Times, but here are the bullet points Brown sites in his mea culpa:

"Didn't see the trends coming in smartphone and 3G with the kind of foresight and customer attention that it should have."

Failed attempt at a single OS based on Linux and Java.

Selling sub-$50 phones was unprofitable.

Oops, indeed. In other negative news, Moto's market share has fallen from 23 percent in Q4 of 2006 to 6.5 percent at the end of 2008. Also, it had an operating loss of $2.2 billion for 2008 and last month suspended its dividend.

It really is a shame, given that the Moto Q is one of our favorite Windows Mobile Standard phones. But this does start to explain why we never really saw anything grossly new and instead have seen revision upon revision of the Q line.

As for the future? Expect cost-cutting and job cuts in the neighborhood of 5,000, as well as a delay of spinning off the handset unit. And, ya know, hopefully some new phones.(And while we're piling on, what ever came of that OTA firmware upgrade system?)